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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I Can See You by Karen Rose (Book Review)

First sentence:Homicide detective Noah Webster stared up into the wide, lifeless eyes of Martha Brisbane with a sigh that hung in the freezing air, just as she did.

My synopsis: Eve had already lived through 2 traumatic incidents that left her scarred both inside and out. The outer scars had healed or been "fixed", but on certain days, the inner scars were still fresh. She was trying to rebuild her life. By day she was a grad student studying psychology - and how one might learn confidence in real life (IRL) by "practicing" it in the virtual world via games - in this case Shadowland. By night she was a bartender working at Sal's - a bar frequented by Minneapolis police officers and members of The Hat Squad.

Shadowland was an online virtual game whose motto was "Sometimes you want to go where no one knows your name". You could do there about anything you could do IRL. You could gamble at the casino, dance at the bar, even take home 'one-night stands'. You became your avatar - and this avatar could be whoever you wanted them to be - and like in most virtual worlds - your avatar was opposite of who you were IRL - for most, it was a reflection of who they wanted to be. Eve had opened up a shop in Shadowland called Pandora's - where people came to buy their avatars. It was also her way of keeping tabs on people in her study. She was not supposed to know who these people were, but she had broken the rules of the double-blind study and had learned there real names.

The Hat Squad was a group of detectives that were given a fedora when they solved their first crime. They wore the hats as a symbol of achievement and pride. A local magazine had just run a feature on The Hat Squad, with an officer on the cover who hadn't been in shining form the last few months. This article made people even love The Hat Squad more - or hate them with a vengeance.

Because Eve knew the names of her subjects - when two women's usage in Shadowland dropped - she checked in to it - and discovered they had committed suicide. She went to her professor to try to persuade him that they needed to do more evaluations, but he did not believe that the study had anything to do with the suicides - and as she was not supposed to know names, told her to forget it - but she couldn't.

Upon checking up at one of her subjects homes, she runs into Detective Noah Webster. Noah had been a patron at Sal's for the last year - and Eve could sense it whenever he was in the bar. Because of her inner scars, she kept to herself - never venturing outside her safe zone where Noah was concerned. Noah had been going to the bar for the last year, only drinking tonic water, as he could not stop thinking about Eve. His wife and son had died years before in a car accident where he was driving - and so wouldn't allow himself to approach Eve either. When he ran into her at the homes of one of the "suicides" - he wondered if it wasn't fate.

As more women die, Eve and Noah grow closer, and the clues begin to be uncovered one by one. How many women will die before they are able to close the net around this killer - and how is it all connected?

My opinion: Once again, I was not disappointed in the latest book by Karen Rose. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite thriller writers. This book was written to cover the span of about 2 weeks, and I love the way that it is split up in hours/days. Makes you realize how much can actually happen in the span of a few short hours - physically and emotionally. Her characters are flawed - and that makes them so much more real. They are able to hurt and be hurt and do not live in a perfect world. I like it that even though you could say Noah was a knight in shining armor - he was still struggling with lots of baggage. I really loved the character of Eve. Even with the rough childhood and trauma, she was shaped by very strong women - and they have rubbed off on her. Her first instinct is to help people, regardless of the cost to her. Her choice of careers - psychology and bartending - are both careers where she could listen to the problems of others. She has overcome a lot and is just getting stronger everyday.

This book is actually the second book about Eve - she was introduced in the book Don't Tell - which I have not read yet, but you can bet it is on my TBR list!